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WASHINGTON 

THE FOUNDER OF THE NATION. 

AN AUDKESS RKAU BEKORE 

THE RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

BY GEORGE MOULTON CARPENTER 
United States District Judge for the District orfthode Island. 

30 April, . 1889. 



We celebrate to-day a double anniversary, — of 
the foundation of our organized national life and of 
the completed fame of the first man in the heroic age 
of our history. But the celebration could not be 
divided. The triumph of Washington and the 
founding of the nation are two aspects of the same 
event. The flag is the copy of his armorial device ; 
the constitution is the inspiration of his self-contained 
and orderly intellect ; the nation itself is the realiza- 
tion of his ambition and the expression of his 
character. 

I thus venture to anticipate the judgment of 
future times. The first age of the republic is now 
finished. The two sections of the country are at last 
united in interest and will soon be united in sympathy 
and in action. Thetheory of the government is settled. 
It is true, indeed, that no person can yet undertake 
to write the history of the century in which these 
things have been accomplished. The history of an 
age must be written by comparison with the times 
which follow as well as those which precede. 
Results, in the action of nations, correspond with 
motives in the actions of men ; and as the moral 



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character of individual conduct cannot be ascerta+ned 
without a knowledge of the underlying motives, so 
the political character and value of a national policy 
cannot be determined until the results of that policy 
are known. The judicious historian of our day will 
therefore mostly confine himself to the chronicle of 
facts, and will make only the broadest generalizations 
and the most obvious inferences. It has been often 
said that the time is not yet come when it is possible 
to assign to Washington, his just rank among 
historical personages. But I am persuaded that even 
now, whoever will carefully study the elements of his 
personal character, the situation and relations of the 
people of this country at the close of the revolution, 
the nature of the problem which lay before them as 
they addressed themselves to the task of settling the 
plan of their government, and finally the character 
and fabric of the government which they have 
established and maintained, will find himself drawn 
to the conclusion that the relation of Washineton to 
our national affairs was different and superior in 
kind, as well as in degree, to that of any other public 
man of the time ; that he has placed the stamp of 
his own character upon the framev/ork of our govern- . 
ment and upon the spirit and purpose of our people ; 
and that the common voice of all men speaks but the 
language of sober truth when he is called " the 
father of his country." 

I purpose briefly to outline some of the grounds 
for this conclusion. 

• In selecting the establishment of the government 
as the topic for consideration at this time, it has not 
been forgotten that our own state had no part in the 






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transactions which we commemorate. Our people 
had not yet accepted the constitution and were not 
represented in Congress or in the electoral college. 
It was at that time the policy of the Rhode Island 
people, as it has been their policy in the main ever 
since, to decline radical changes in public policy until 
they are approved on the most mature reflection. It 
is therefore not inappropriate for us to consider the 
motives and reasons which urged them at last to join 
the federal Q^overnment. 

In the beofinninor of the revolution, there was 
among the people of the colonies no spirit of national 
unity. They were urged to united action by the 
coincidence of their material interests. Civic free- 
dom, and even personal liberty, were indeed threat- 
ened; but the chief purpose of the English govern- 
ment was to make these colonies tributary to the 
financial interest of the mother country. The whole 
course of their legislation betrays this purpose. The 
King's prerogative and his rights as lord paramount, 
— rights which had been acquired by feudal conquest 
on English soil, — were claimed to extend over the 
soil of proprietary colonies; and the legislative power 
of parliament, which in England has ever been held 
to derive validity only from the consent and parti- 
cipation of the Estates of the realm, was employed in 
this country to convert our free communities into 
provinces to be governed by arbitrary power. The 
acts for the government of the colonies, the acts 
regulating navigation and commerce, the varipus 
measures restrictive of manufactures and the useful 
arts, the acts for internal revenue and for taxes on 
imports, — all were artfully contrived to break the free 



spirit of the people and at the same time to destroy 
the industries of the country separately and in detail, 
and thus, as each colony successively became the 
object of attack, to secure the envious indifference of 
all the others. These measures had doubtless to a' 
large extent produced the desired result. The people 
were angry, doubtful, suspicious. The league of the 
colonies was formed from necessity and not from 
choice or sympathy. To combine these diverse and 
discordant interests, to unite these jealous com- 
munities and to hold them together in the face of 
invasion, — this task demanded a leader whose motives 
were higher and whose purposes were more far- 
reaching than those of the great mass of the people 
whom he was to lead. He must be a man, too, who 
could lead the leaders of the people. These were no 
common men. Samuel Adams, the very genius of 
revolution ; John Adams, at once irascible and un- 
sympathetic ; Greene, the favorite of the army ; 
Hamilton, the marvellous youth in whom statesman- 
ship was not an acquirement but an instinct ; 
Franklin, the father of all practical politicians, — these 
all, and others as eminent in ability and in character, 
recognized the pre-eminent fitness of Washington for 
the chief control of affairs. Called by the unanimous 
voice of Congress to the military command, his 
appointment inspired and united the army. He had 
no rivals but those who were traitors to their country. 
When the people were deliberating on the question 
whether they would approve the constitution, the 
general belief that he would be the person called on 
to execute the office of President was sufficient to 
reconcile them to the creation of an office aeainst 



which there was the violent suspicion that it could 
serve no use but to prepare the way for a monarchy. 
His address on laying down that office outlined the 
whole policy of the government from that day to the 
present, and his action on that occasion has per- 
manently fixed the limit of the presidential term. 
His words and his example have a force greater than 
that of the organic law. The constitution may be 
changed ; but no statesman will venture to contradict 
the maxims of the farewell address, and no President 
will exceed the official years of Washington. 

In attempting to account for this phenomenon, 
two questions naturally suggest themselves. First, 
what was there in the character and position of 
Washington which made him acceptable as a leader; 
and secondly, what were the qualities of head and 
heart which enabled him to achieve so sfreat success 
both as a military leader and as a civil administrator. 
Let us consider these two questions in their order. 

First, what recommended him as the leader of 
the colonies ? As we ask the question a majestic 
presence rises before us. Tall of stature, of great 
physical vigor, with large and powerful hands, a 
habit of bodily movement deliberate and not un- 
graceful, a countenance orrave and commanding, pale, 
easily flushed with emotion, burned red but not 
bronzed by exposure to the rays of the sun, an eye 
clear, calm and cold, — such was the aspect of the 
man who rose in the Continental Congress to accept 
the difficult and hazardous post of commander-in- 
chief. " I declare," said he, " with the utmost 
sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the com- 
mand I am honored with." A countrv o-entleman, 



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first a land surveyor and then a farmer, familiar with 
military affairs only as he had learned them in border 
warfare, a lover of dogs and horses and hunting, he 
had received only the imperfect education which was 
at the command of the well-to-do planter in his own 
neighborhood. He understood no language but 
English. But he was born for conflict as well as for 
command. When he first came under fire on the 
western frontier, he found, as he says, " something 
charmino-" in the whistlino^ of bullets. 

He was the leader of the southern society, in 
the richest and most populous of the southern states. 
Amone the settlers of each of the colonies were some 
who ranked with the lesser gentry, and there early 
grew up a class of social and political leaders, less 
marked indeed but in close imitation of the leading 
class in England. There was a wide difference 
between the north and the south, which has con- 
tinued to the present day and is only now passing 
away. Successful tradesmen were the social leaders 
in the north, while the rich planters controlled and 
gave the tone to the society of the south. The 
northern people were commercial, practical, steady 
in action, cool and observant, looking more to the 
end than to means ; the southern people were agri- 
cultural, proud of their order, quick in quarrel and 
swift of action, fond of command. Such were the two 
forces out of which the nation erew. It was im- 
possible that they should permanently unite except 
in the heat of battle. None can fully appreciate the 
weiofht and character of these two forces but those 
who stood upon the fatal ridge of Gettysburg and 
saw the chivalry of Virginia advance for their last 



assault. The power of the south perished on that 
field.r — but not until the center of the national de- 
fences was pierced, lest in after ages it should be 
said that the Union lines, on that day, were compact 
of more than mortal men. 

The ruling class of the south in structure, in 
character and in temper, was more similar to the 
landed aristocracy in England, and the southern 
leaders were, consequently, the less willing to yield 
their claim to official precedence for the sake of the 
common good. It must therefore be a man of the 
south who could bind these two forces together for 
the revolutionary struggle. For the genius of the 
north was reserved a greater task and a orreater 
triumph. In the fire of a greater revolution, we have 
seen these two forces melted into one. Henceforth 
the Nation has one character, one purpose, and one 
destiny. 

What, in the second place, was the quality and 
the attitude of the mind of Washington whereby he 
was able to execute the great work to which he was 
called ? To such questions as this, no complete 
answer can be expected. Greatness in men has a 
quality or a substance which evades analysis. It 
resides, perhaps, in a proportion too subtle for us to 
measure and in a combination too strong for us to 
break. Meanwhile we may observe the outward 
form, the signs and the manifestations of greatness. 

Consider, then, in the structure of the mind of 
Washinoton, a orenius for command, a talent for 
detail, an elevation of sentiment, an ambition to be 
useful. 



The genius of command lies in the power to 
observe and to appreciate the mental attitude and 
purpose of the people, in the faculty to wait, and in 
the courage to grasp the opportunity. In the 
statesman, the politician and the demagogue it is all 
one. They differ in purpose, not in method. In 
the conduct of the revolutionary war this quality is 
especially observed. Naturally and without effort, 
Washington assumed the superior position. The 
Congress, the army, the people, all Waited for his 
word, were inspired by his example, and reinforced 
his courage. 

The talent for detail is the reverse side of genius, 
the test of accurate judgment and of enlightened 
and matured conclusions. It distinofuishes the 
thinker from the theorist. With what wonderful 
pains did Washington investigate and direct the 
methods of military equipment and practice, the 
forms of financial procedure, the mutual relations of 
the executive and legislative functions, the subtleties 
of international law and the mysteries of diplomacy, 
the dress of officers and the etiquette of the repub- 
lican court. It has been said, in supposed derogation 
from his merit, that much of this work was done for 
him by others. This is the highest testimony to his 
capacity for affairs. He is no common person whose 
researches are aided by Alexander Hamilton and 
whose phraseology is corrected by James Madison. 

In elevation of sentiment, in sincerity of purpose, 
he has set the example for the whole world. He is, 
thus far, the standard of excellence for public men. 
Of the beginning of his public career he says, " I had 
no view of acquisition but that of honor by serving 



faithfully my King and country." In discoursing- on 
the highest forms of civic virtue, an acute and learned 
Frenchman thus illustrates his subject. " That," he 
says, " during a career of twenty years one should 
show that political sagacity, military heroism, the 
management of the most important affairs, a crush- 
ing weight of responsibility, were in no way incon- 
sistent with public and private morality ; that one 
should be under temptation to put an end to anarchy 
by taking possession of power, yet should refuse to 
do so ; that one should use an army only for the 
maintenance of the laws, never in defiance of them; and, 
far from attempting to excite its natural discontent, 
should silence all complaints for the sake of the public 
good, — all this is such an extraordinary fact in history, 
that we should not have believed it possible, had not 
Washington lived to prove it by accomplishing it." 

He had an ambition to rule for the good of the 
people, as strong as the ambition which has urged 
other rulers to their own aofgrandizement. The 
ordinary marks of ambition are wanting in his con- 
duct, partly because in him the sentiment was so 
strong and overmasterino- as to transcend the forms 
of expression which are adequate for common men. 
It was never necessary for him to strive for position. 
He was conscious of his own eminence and conscious 
that the first place belonged to him. When, as a 
country lad, he joined the staff of the gorgeous 
Braddock, he wrote to his brother, " I am treated 
with freedom, not inconsistent with respect, by the 
General and his family." 

Consider, next, the manner in which the intellect 
so constituted applied itself to the solution of the 



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momentous question which then lay before the 
American people. The liberty which had been so 
hardly won must be preserved against foreign and 
domestic attack, discordant states must be united for 
a common end, a Nation must be constructed. The 
future fame of Washington depended upon the 
manner in which his great and controlling influence 
was brought to bear in the popular discussions 
which followed, and out of which grew the Constitu- 
tion. Had he decided wrongly at this point, he 
would be known in history as the partisan leader of 
a useless revolution. 

Two theories of civil society were presented for 
adoption, and they early divided the people of these 
states into two political parties which, with certain 
transformations and changes of name, continue to the 
present day. On the basis of these two theories, 
thfere were proposed two corresponding forms of 
government for the Union. The permanence of the 
Nation has been secured by the fact that both these 
great parties have from the beginning intended, by 
different, methods, to reach the same result, — to 
preserve at once the liberty of the people and the 
integrity of the government. The peculiar felicity 
of the Nation has been that, in the practical deter- 
mination of all great questions of policy, the Federal 
theory has invariably prevailed and that it is now 
finally established as the governing principle upon 
which the national growth and development shall 
hereafter proceed. 

The two theories of government rest upon 
fundamentally different beliefs as to the nature and 
conditions of personal liberty. Perfect freedom, in 



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one view, consists in the absence of external restraint; 
according to the other view, it consists in the perfect 
development of the power which each man has 
within himself to control his external actions accord- 
ing- to the principles of right and justice. In apply- 
ing these principles to the social organism, therefore, 
the Democratic idea is that laws are an infringement 
upon liberty, and are hence an evil necessary to be 
endured for the preservation of external order but 
properly to be confined within the narrowest possible 
limits, and that, consequently, whenever any addition 
is made to the power of the government it must be 
made at the expense of a corresponding subtraction 
from the rights of the people ; while the Federal, or 
Republican idea, on the other hand, is that the 
action of human beings cannot be free unless it be 
orderly, that law is not alone the external condition 
which makes liberty possible by repressing disorder, 
but is rather the external form which liberty itself 
assumes, and that complete liberty is not possible 
unless the government be irresistible. 

It will be easily seen that parties so widely 
divided in doctrine will propose widely different 
plans for the establishment of a civil government. 
The system and theory of government which were 
approved and powerfully advocated by Washington 
were finally adopted and have been carried into 
effect. He foresaw what must be the inevitable 
result of the Democratic theory and repeatedly and 
impressively, in his public utterances, warned the 
people lest we should, to use his own words, " find 
by our own unhappy experience that there is a 
natural and necessary progression from the extreme 



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of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny, and* that 
arbitrary power is most easily estabHshed on the 
ruins of Hberty abused to licentiousness." 

Against the system so proposed there has ever 
been maintained a consistent opposition. The Con- 
stitution was adopted only after the most strenuous 
efforts, under the pressure of impending financial 
distress and threatened financial dishonor and not so 
much from a popular feeling of approval as from the 
general recognition of the fact that the plan was 
favored by much the greater weight of instructed 
opinion. James Monroe writes to condole with 
Thomas Jefferson over the first great defeat of their 
newly organized party. " Be assured," says he, 
"Washington's influence carried this oovernment." 

Since the adoption of the Constitution the oppo- 
sition has taken another form and the attempt has 
been made to establish a method of constitutional 
interpretation whereby the essential character of the 
government might be changed by confining the 
powers of the executive and of the legislature within 
the explicit meaning of the terms of the organic law. 
This theory of interpretation has never been main- 
tained with logical consistency, and may perhaps be 
said to be now practically abandoned, although traces 
of it may yet be discerned and for sometime to come 
may be found in the opinions of some of our states- 
men. It was of course, at once seen to be inadequate 
during the late rebellion of a portion of the slave 
states. 

The success of the system of government, as it 
was originally established and interpreted, has thus 
amply proved the wisdom of the fathers of the 



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republic. There is no doubt that for the chief dis- 
tinguishing features of that system we are largely 
indebted to the practical sagacity and sound judg- 
ment of Washington. Those who wish to be satisfied 
on this point must review the history of the time in 
the writings of the fathers. They are writings of 
which no American citizen should be ignorant. 

It may, however, be worth while to advert to a 
few of those leadino- features of our oovernment on 
whose importance Washington especially insisted. 

In opposition to the example of all previously 
existing republics we have entrusted the active duties 
of government to a selected few. This is obviously 
the most unpopular provision which could be 
proposed, seeing that it was a plan as yet untried in 
any similar situation of human affairs ; and, in 
practice, it has proved the strongest safeguard of our 
free institutions. The example of the French re- 
public has abundantly shown the danger of submit- 
ting public questions to the direct vote of the whole 
people. "It is," says Bolzac, " an axiom written on 
the universe that there is no vigor except where 
there are few active principles." 

We have, again, a central and predominant 
governmental power, strong enough, as has been 
proved, to repress any combination which might be 
formed against it, and armed with the judicial power 
to determine, without appeal, the limits of its own 
authority. We have the deliberately expressed 
opinion of Washington that if such a government 
could have been established at the beginning of the 
revolutionarv struesrle, he "could demonstrate to 
every mind open to conviction that, in less time and 



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with much less expense than has been incurred, the 
war might have been brought to the same happy 
conckision." 

Still further, the attributes of sovereignty reside 
in our national government, and not to any extent 
whatever in the separate states. Of this proposition 
there can be at the present time no reasonable 
controversy. Even under the Confederation, Wash- 
ington spoke of the powers of Congress as the 
"sovereign authority," and pointedly warned the 
states that it was " only in our united character as 
an empire that our independence" was "acknowledged." 
" The states,'' said Madison, in the convention which 
formed the Constitution, "at present are only great 
corporations having the power of making by-laws not 
contradictory to the general confederation." But the 
form and language of the Constitution leave no room 
for doubt. The government is established by the 
people of the whole country in their collective 
capacity, and the states exercise their power of en- 
acting municipal regulations only by virtue of the 
provisions of the Constitution. The two states of 
North Carolina and Rhode Island alone can claim 
to have exercised the powers of sovereignty at any 
single moment of their history, and these powers 
they abdicated when they joined the federal union. 

No one can attentively read the writings of 
Washington without becoming convinced that such 
a government as this was deemed by him to be 
essential to the maintenance of our national life. 
This is perhaps the strongest proof of his genius for 
statecraft, since it brino-s before our minds the 
singular force and clearness with which he realized 



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the true situation and the real needs of his country. 

His early life seems like a predestined prepara- 
tion for his work. At nineteen he was an adjutant- 
general in Virginia. At twenty-one, commissioned 
to visit the French posts on the Ohio on a difficult 
and dangerous mission, he devotes the vacant hours 
to studying the military resources of the country, to 
making himself familiar with the temper and strength 
of the Indian tribes, to planning fortifications, and to 
laying out campaigns on the Canadian frontier. At 
twenty-two he was in command of the Virginian troops 
in the first skirmish of the French war, which ended 
in the capture of Quebec and thus laid the founda- 
tion of our republic. At twenty-three his friends 
and neighbors predicted his future eminence. On the 
occasion of a slight illness, due to exposure to the 
weather, he is admonished in a formal letter from an 
influential gentleman that he owes it to the public to 
preserve his health. The Rev. Samuel Davies, in a 
printed sermon entitled " Religion and Patriotism 
the Constituents of the good Soldier," uses these 
words, — "As a remarkable instance of this, I may 
point out to the public that heroic youth. Colonel 
Washington ; whom I cannot but hope Providence 
has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some 
important service to his country." Washington him- 
self, when he is called to the command of the army, 
writes, — " It has been a kind of destiny that has 
thrown me upon this service." 

When the war closed, he instantly perceived the 
necessity of a vigorous national government and en- 
forced his views in a most remarkable and convincing 
circular letter addressed to the governors of the 



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several states. The adoption of the Constitution will 
be, says he, "a new phenomenon in the political and 
moral world." He urged his countrymen to seize the 
opportunity "to give to mankind the magnanimous 
and too novel example of a people always guided by 
an exalted justice and benevolence." 

Surely, as he penned these words, his sight was 
opened and a grand prophetic vision rose before his 
eyes. He saw the feeble colonies grown to a mighty 
nation ; and he saw a people, for the first time in the 
history of the human race, stake their existence on 
the field of battle for the sake of those who were 
desolate and oppressed. Perhaps, too, he saw in his 
■.•ision the image of the man who was to complete 
he work he had begun, the man of the people, called 
CO bring deliverance to the captives, and crowned 
with martyrdom. 

On the page which was touched by the lips of 
Washington, as he promised to preserve the Consti- 
tution, are written these words of the patriarch Jacob 
as he blessed the posterity of Joseph : — - 

The archers have sorely grieved him 

And shot at him and persecuted him ; 

But his bow abode in strength 

And the arms of his hands were made strong 

By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob 

By the name of the shepherd, the stone of Israel. 

These words bind together the age which was 
then passing away, and the nobler age which was 
beginning. They are a benediction on the old order, 
and a prophecy of the new. 



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